06/08/2026
Sermon Transcript Pentecost 2 2026 June 7
Maybe when watching a medical tv show or a Law and Order episode, or maybe in your own family circles, you’ve seen someone fake an illness or create symptoms…sometimes for sympathy or the raise funds or get time off work.
They are not sick but they think they are …not sick but pretend they are.
Its now called ‘factitious disorder’ but it used to be called ‘Munchausen syndrome’.
The inverse of that is the person who is clearly ill but thinks and believes that they are not
…that they are perfectly fine.
That’s a problem that plagues many of us as well as the Pharisees who saw Jesus in today’s text.
The fact is…we are not well.
Some of us are well aware of the fact that we are not well… while others blissfully move through life completely unaware of the fact that we are not well.
The Apostle Paul makes that diagnosis quite clear in his Epistle to the Romans.
(A book from which we will hear Sunday readings all the way to September this year.)
He writes as the Lord directs beginning chapter 2…
15 … the work of the law is written on [your] hearts, while [your] conscience also bears witness, and [your] conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse [you] 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Chapter 3:9 …both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
He’s talking about us.
He is diagnosing us.
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The diagnosis is clear.
We are sinners before God.
We are sick in sin and rebellion.
We don’t listen to our Lord and follow him and do what he says. We hurt and harm one another.
You don’t need an MRI or an Xray to tell you you are not well.
We feel it. We know.
But the fact is it is worse than you feel and worse than you think.
According to the Word of the Lord:
This sickness is terminal.
There is no cure inside yourself.
You can’t vision yourself to a cure.
You can’t manifest in your heart and mind and will to be clean and cured.
It doesn’t work that way.
Sin has metastasized everywhere and to and in everyone.
You and I are born with it.
There are no clean margins.
Some of us are fully aware that we are sick with sin and others go along blissfully unaware of the reality of how bad it is with us before the Lord.
When we do become aware of our need,
we will look for a cure,
a remedy,
a way out of our sickness.
And every snake oil seller will offer us potions and elixirs, half cures and bandaids to cover over the wounds.
But none of our concoctions will finally cure …none of our treatments will take care of it.
The best we can do with our sin is manage the symptoms and limit the damage.
Matthew (also called Levi) was sitting one day in the tax booth, a booth he bought from the Romans for a set rate and a booth from which he would squeeze as much money as he could from his fellow Jews.
Matthew is sitting and scrolling on his phone when Jesus walks by and sees him.
He sees a man sick with sin.
He sees a man who by his actions has put himself against his own people.
Jesus sees the Pharisees too.
Pharisees are people who put forth their own efforts as proof of their status before God.
There isn’t anyone that Jesus doesn’t see.
He sees you too.
He sees you sick with sin.
He sees you in your deepest need.
He sees you in your ailments.
He sees you in your pain.
He sees you in your addictions,
in your idolatry and
…He sees you in the booth you’ve built for yourself, the prison you’ve put yourself in.
And Jesus sees deeper into you than an MRI or Xray can do.
He sees the full extent of your sickness and sin.
And He calls you.
He calls the Pharisees to learn mercy.
He calls Matthew to follow him.
He calls you to trust in him.
Jesus and only Jesus is finally the cure,
the remedy, the hope for all who suffer in sin and sickness and death.
The Angel said: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
He saves.
He calls.
He came for the sick…
…for the Pharisee with his pride,
…for the tax collector with his shame and ruined reputation
…and for you, sick with sin.
He is here for us all.
And he did more than sit at our table and sup with us.
He went to the cross.
He bore the full weight of the sickness — every sin,
every shame,
every broken body,
every false remedy we have ever chased,
every moment we have turned away from him toward something that promised life but delivered death.
He took all of it into his own body
and he carried it all the way to the forsakenness of God in our place.
And he did it for you.
The sickness that kills us killed him.
And Death itself has been defeated in his death.
And he calls you now…
in your sickness,
in your shame,
in the darkness,
in the place where you are forsaken.
In the Word and waters of your baptism, he claimed you, sick, wrong and ruined. He claimed you and said because of His work, you are His.
And you belong to Him.
Your sins are forgiven.
Your life is held in Him.
At this table, he feeds you the only medicine that actually works — his own body and blood, given and shed for you the forgiveness of your sins, for the healing of what no earthly physician can fix,
for the life that death cannot destroy.
The great physician has come.
Not for the healthy,
but for you.
Get up and follow him.
Matthew did.
And he rejoiced to be called by Jesus.
Matthew left his booth behind and began to follow Jesus.
And that following carried him as far as Persia and finally to a Martyr’s death.
…What do you do when your entire life has been changed by meeting Jesus?
You make a meal and invite your friends over to meet him which is what Matthew did.
He didn’t keep Jesus to himself.
He didn’t decide that Jesus’s call was just for him because he was less of sinner than his friends.
Rather He shared his savior with other sinners.
He shared the great physician with those who needed a healer, a savior, a friend.
He learned mercy from Jesus and he had mercy on others by inviting them to know Jesus too.
You, go, and do likewise.
